No comments about The National Parks of Utah: A Journey to the Colorado Plateau (A 10x13 Book©) (Sierra Press).

No comments about Utah: A Book of 21 Postcards.

2 comments about Travelers Guide: To The Geology Of Colorado Plateau.

1. This is another of Donald Baars' series of excellent geology books. Centered on the Four Corners, the Colorado Plateau displays some of the most varied and spectacular geology found anywhere.

   To make reading and understanding easier, the author divides the Plateau into seven smaller units, e.g. the Paradox Basin. Each section begins with an explanation of its geologic history then identifies every rock formation seen along what appears to be every road that crosses it. This latter is done at a level of detail I've seen only one other place (Roadside Kansas by Buchannan and McCauley).

   If you enjoy knowing just what you're looking at when you drive through this area or, like me, have a developed a hobby of collecting rock samples, this is a marvelously useful book.




2. The guidebook is useful in some ways, but woefully lacking in others. The organization uses precise mileage, which is helpful in finding the features Baars mentions. The geological cross-sections are clearly diagrammed and the prose is accessible to the layman. However, the photos are poor (mostly taken under the high-angle mid-day sun) and the lack of an index is absolutely unacceptable. Once you are on the road and have found the chapter, then it is easy to follow, but it is frustrating when trying to find a specific area or topic while reading/researching at home since there is no index to refer to.

1 comments about Utah Bouldering.

1. I am not from the Utah area so buying the guidebook really helped out. It had good descriptions and you could easily find the problems marked in the book. Our trip to Joe's Valley and the Moab area was just awesome!

No comments about Park City.

No comments about A FalconGuide to Dinosaur National Monument, 2nd (Exploring Series).

No comments about Paiute ATV Trail, Utah Trail Map.

No comments about Guide to the San Juan River: Montezuma Creek to Clay Hills Crossing, Utah.

No comments about Mountain Biking Hut to Hut: Telluride to Moab (Regional Mountain Biking Series).

5 comments about Trail Guide to Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

1. As a lover of the region, frequent visitor, and avid hiker and photographer, I own several of the guidebooks for the Grand Staircase. After reading the favorable review of this Trail Guide, I ordered the book from Amazon, without ever actually perusing it in advance. The good things about the book are its compact size and introductory chapter for background information. The written directions to the trailheads are also good, but there are major shortcomings in the book, all of which are frustrating when you are actually out in the field trying to find something the book claims to be guiding you toward. There is no index at all in the back of the book, there are not even the simplest trail maps at all, and the descriptions are severely lacking for some of the trails. For example, the information about the hike to the One Hundred-Hand Panel of pictographs on page 47 simply says, "it is possible to hike up to the pictographs...but be sure not to cross the fence near the trailhead...Once the pictograph panel is found..." Those directions are woefully inadequate in directing somebody to find the panels. At other trails, the descriptions are sketchy and very brief in comparison to what other guidebooks have about the same trail. I would recommend Ron Adkison's "Best Easy Day Hikes" and Steve Allen's "Canyoneering" instead of this one.



2. I got this, then ultimately ended up getting the Falcon Guide book instead, which had almost all of the same hikes and was better written/thought out. Still, this is a good book, but the Falcon Guide is better.



3. I used this, along with resources on the internet, to plan a couple of day hikes to Grand Staircase National Monument last year. It seemed to be a decent guide and helped us pick out a nice hike in Lick Wash. I don't generally use guide books on the hike itself and I always refer to resources on the web as well, so I might not be best person to review this. If you are just trying to decide where to hike and figure out what options you have in the are you are in, I would recommend this book. (The Monument covers a pretty large area - we were staying in Page, AZ, so we stuck to the southermost hikes). I just wish we had more time to hike the area while we were there.



4. The bad news:
   -- The few maps are woefully inadequate.
   -- In this computer age, there is NO EXCUSE to omit an index.
   -- Uninspired and thin writeups.
   -- No trail summary, listing in one place a table of all the hikes with length, difficulty, elevation change, ... for each.
   
   The good news:
   -- This hiking book won't increase hiker density, meaning increased chance of solitude.
   -- It is indeed small and portable.



5. This is an outstanding guide to the huge region encompassed by the GSENM. On a number of earlier trips I had spent a total of at least three weeks backpacking along the Escalante River and its sidecanyons, but had never visited the Grand Staircase or the Kaiparowits Plateau. I just returned from two weeks backpacking and car camping in the latter two regions.
   
   Urmann's book provided an excellent overview of the region. It was sufficiently detailed so that one could make effective use of it to locate various features, but not so detailed that one could not read through it easily to get an overview. (Of course, for backpacking one should alway use topo maps. No guidebook can be that detailed.)
   
   I first read the about the regions with which I am familiar to "calibrate" the book. I found it remarkably accurate. Throughout I found very few errors (one a misspelling, one a mileage along a road). I recommend it highly as the best book from which to learn what is available to see and do in this enormous region.